CC 2007 02 26
CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
FEBRUARY 26, 2007
Mayor Furlong called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.. The meeting was opened with the
Pledge to the Flag.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT:
Mayor Furlong, Councilman Litsey, Councilwoman
Ernst, Councilwoman Tjornhom and Councilman Peterson
STAFF PRESENT:
Todd Gerhardt Laurie Hokkanen, Kate Aanenson and Paul Oehme
PUBLIC PRESENT FOR ALL ITEMS:
Melanie Rodriguez 2357 Stone Creek Lane West
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mayor Furlong: Thank you and good evening. Welcome to everybody here in the council
chambers, as well as those watching at home. We're glad that you joined us. At this point, in
consideration of our agenda for this evening, I will be adding one item and that would be under
new business. Would be appointment of a commissioner to the Southwest Metro Transit
Commission. At this time I would ask if there are any other additions or modifications to the
agenda. No? Okay. We'll proceed as amended.
CONSENT AGENDA:
Mayor Furlong: So at this time I would ask members of the council or others present in the
council chambers if there's a desire to separately discuss any of the items 1(a) through (f).
Councilman Litsey: Mr. Mayor I have two items I'd like to discuss separately. One is item 1(b).
That's because it affects me as a property owner and I'd just as soon not vote on it.
Mayor Furlong: Abstain?
Councilman Litsey: I'd rather just stay out of it completely and you can vote on that separately.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright, yep.
Councilman Litsey: And then the other item is 1(e). I just thought you know, we spent a lot of
time on the strategic plan and I thought we should at least talk about it a little bit.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Why don't we pick up 1(e) under our new business, if that's
okay.
Councilman Litsey: That'd be fine.
City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Mayor Furlong: Anyone else? If not, is there a motion to adopt items 1(a), (c), (d) and (f).
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Litsey seconded to approve the following consent
agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations:
a. Approval of Minutes:
-City Council Work Session Minutes dated February 12, 2007
-City Council Verbatim and Summary Minutes dated February 12, 2007
Resolution #2007-14:
c. Tanadoona Drive/Dogwood Road Reconstruction Project 06-06:
Re-Call Public Hearing.
Resolution #2007-15:
d. Accept Streets, Storm Sewer and Utility Improvements in West
th
78 Street Extension (Westwood Community Church), Project 04-14.
f. Approval of Letter of Support for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Prevention Minnesota: Active
Community Planning.
All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
B. 2007 STREET REHABILITATION PROJECT 07-02: APPROVE PLANS AND
SPECFICIATIONS: AUTHORIZE AD FOR BIDS.
Resolution #2007-16:Councilman Peterson moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to
approve plans and specifications and Authorize Advertising for Bids for the 2007 Street
Rehabilitation Project 07-02. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 4 to 0.
(Councilman Litsey recused himself from the vote due to a conflict of interest.)
VISITOR PRESENTATIONS:
None.
LAW ENFORCEMENT/FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE.
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: Good evening Mr. Mayor, members of the council, city staff. Again a
pleasure to see everybody this evening. Sheriff's report and monthly statistics for the month of
January, 2007. In January we had 80 criminal calls for service in Chanhassen and they broke
down into 34 Part I crimes and 46 Part II crimes. As I mentioned at my monthly update, in
January we had a number of burglaries reported at the beginning of the month and 3 arrests were
made in those. In a case that the Highway 7 and 41 strip mall. Altogether in January we had 15
reported burglaries within the city. We had 16 reports of thefts reported in January. We also had
2 aggravated assault reports last month. Upon further research I learned of one incident stemmed
from a domestic abuse situation in which a suspect was arrested for felony domestic assault and
the other was a minor assault towards a deputy in Chanhassen in which the suspect was arrested
for fourth degree assault and the deputy was not injured in that incident. Of the Part II offenses,
as usual the most comment occurrences were reports of property damage and theft related calls.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
There were 1,054 non-criminal calls for service, 427 traffic stops in the city and 266 citations
were issued city wide last month. Altogether for a grand totals there were 1,134 calls for service
were handled by Chanhassen deputies. Also within the last month with Feb Fest at Lake Ann
Park we received some volunteers from our Explorer program to brave the cold along with your's
truly out on the ice. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly recognize and thank our
Explorer Scouts for helping us out with that. As part of this month's update we also have
Sergeant Chris Dellwo from the Shakopee Police Department who is also the coordinator to
Southwest Metro Drug Task Force. He is here with us this evening and Sheriff Olson, and they
will have some presentations for you regarding operations of the task force within Chanhassen.
But before I turn it over to them I would be happy to entertain any questions, comments or
concerns that the council would have for me.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Any questions for the Sergeant?
Councilman Peterson: Sergeant, of the 15 burglaries during that month, can you, do we know
about how many of those 3 were the perpetrators of or not?
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: We're in the process of investigating that right now councilor. Our
investigators are trying to determine links that would link any of the burglaries to those 3
suspects.
Councilman Peterson: Is it likely that they were?
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: It's possible. It's possible.
Councilman Peterson: Okay, thanks.
Mayor Furlong: Any other questions?
Councilman Litsey: They're persons of interest?
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: Pardon?
Councilman Litsey: They are persons of interest.
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: They would be persons of interest.
Councilman Litsey: That seems to be the new term now.
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: I would agree with that.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. Good.
Sgt. Ross Gullickson: Thank you.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
SOUTHWEST METRO DRUG TASK FORCE UPDATE.
Mayor Furlong: As the Sergeant said, we do have, is it Deputy Chris Dellwo or Officer?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: I'm a Sergeant.
Mayor Furlong: Don't want to demote. Welcome.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Thanks Mr. Mayor, members of the council. I appreciate the opportunity to
come here tonight and briefly discuss with you our drug task force. Kind of an overview of how
it works and what we've found in and around your community last year and so far into this year.
Our drug task force was created in 1988. Our current geographic areas include the counties of
Carver, Scott, McLeod and a portion of Hennepin County. In 1988 the federal government
provided grant funds to create regional drug task forces. The thought behind it at that time was
that traditional efforts in the drug trade were not as effective as they had hoped. It was thought
that the individualized municipal police departments and counties lacked the personnel,
specialized training, equipment and so forth to effectively investigate narcotic violations. Today,
in 2007, this is what the state looks like as far as regional drug task forces. You'll see us in light
blue. There are 21 regional drug task forces throughout the state, all receiving partial funding
through federal grants. In a nutshell the mission of our drug task force is to provide a
comprehensive and multi-jurisdictional effort to reduce drug trafficking and it's harmful
consequences and to provide effective drug awareness education through the coordination and
resource sharing of it's participating members. Here's a list of participating law enforcement
agencies. They are the counties of Carver, McLeod, Scott. The police departments in Belle
Plain, Glencoe, Hutchinson, Lester Prairie, Prior Lake, Shakopee and South Lake Minnetonka.
Our contributing communities consist of City of Carver, Chanhassen, Cologne, Hamburg,
Mayer, Norwood-Young America, Victoria, Waconia and Watertown. Briefly how we operate.
We operate under a joint powers agreement. That allows our investigators to travel outside of
their traditional jurisdictional areas like mine would be Shakopee. It allows us to move freely
around our area to follow our information, where it goes. The nature of a drug trafficking
organization is that they're very mobile and they're, and that is why back in 1988, that was part of
the thought of creating these task forces is a group of people that will claim ownership over this
information and follow it where it needs to go to try to disrupt these networks. We're governed
by a committee comprised of the chief law enforcement officers of the participating agencies and
we're funded by the combination of federal grant funds, participating member contributions and
forfeiture proceeds. We are staffed by investigators from our participating agencies. Currently 2
investigators from Carver County, 1 investigator from McLeod County, 1 from Scott County and
in addition to myself, 1 investigator from Shakopee. Operating expenditures. You'll see I have
totaled what it costs us to operate over the past 4 years, or 3 years and what we're budgeted to
spend in 2007. Where do we get that money? Here's, like I mentioned, there's 3 sources of
funding for us. The first is federal grant funds. As you can see our federal grant dollars are
decreasing. In 2003 and 2004, that was a 2 year funding cycle, we received $160,000 for each of
those years. In '05 it dropped to 120 and '06 it was 80 and this year we received $40,000. Our
second source. Membership contributions. They've remained relatively stable. The third leg of
our funding is forfeitures. In addition to helping us operate, it disrupts their organization if we
take, if we take away what helps them. You know the drive behind people involved in drug
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
trafficking is money so we take those things, when the law allows for it, to seize cash, vehicles,
jewelry, guns, and homes. In 2005 our share of our forfeiture proceeds, be it liquidized property
or cash was the $161,767 and in '06 it was $148,005. Vehicles are negotiated back or they're
sold at auction. Jewelry is sold. Guns are destroyed and homes are generally negotiated back.
As you will see our federal grant funds are decreasing. Our membership contributions are about
the same and budget for '07 was $232,000. That left for '07 an unfunded budget of over
$100,000. In order for us to make that off the membership, or I'm sorry. In order for us to make
that up in our budget, we'd have to seize about $150,000 worth of cash or liquidized, liquidated
property to cover that. That unfunded budget. The other thing we do is our community
presentations. In 2005 we did 17 for approximately 550 people in attendance. In '06 we did 25
with a little better than 800 in attendance. The three most common drugs that we investigate in
all our communities are cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana. 2006 was a banner year for
cocaine. We seized 12 pounds in comparison to 3.5 pounds in 2005. Methamphetamine, 2.5
pounds versus 1.5 pounds in 2005. And marijuana, 18 pounds in 2006 versus 80 pounds in 2005.
Statewide, methamphetamine seizures have stabilized over the past 2 years. Cocaine seizures
have spiked. Highest numbers seized since 2003. ...investigator associated with that arrest
however is methamphetamine. Approximately consistently over the past 3 years, 42 to 43% of
all our arrests are methamphetamine related. Meth labs have also declined. They peaked in
2003 with 13 meth labs to 2006 we had 1, and we don't have any yet in 2007. How we break
down our Carver County activities. In 2006, I won't read through all of them for you. Those
numbers indicate some type of enforcement action. They don't include an investigation that
didn't lead to anywhere, i.e. a traffic stop or a search warrant or some type of an arrest.
Specifically Chanhassen. In 2006 we had 17 drug related arrests with drugs seized ranged from
cocaine, meth, marijuana, marijuana grow operations and prescription drugs. Our investigations
start in a variety of ways, from a neighbor who may give a tip of suspicious activity or through
another branch of law enforcement. In one particular case of a marijuana grow operation it was a
state trooper who followed a Chanhassen resident to his home. He was attempting to arrest him
for stolen license plates. He called for assistance from the deputies in Chan and upon
interviewing the suspect they smelled marijuana and they contacted one of our drug task force
investigators who drafted a search warrant. We went in the home and discovered a marijuana
grow operation, which was a pretty good one. It was 60 plants. We seized some cash. That's an
example of one of the cases, of how it works. There's other ones that happen in Chan. There
was just a neighbor who gave a tip to one of our investigators just suspicious. So he worked up
his own investigation. Executed a search warrant and got like 4 ounces of cocaine, a little under
a pound of marijuana, some ecstasy and a substantial cash seizure. In 2007, to date, we've had 8
drug related arrests, all cocaine. Three of them were from sale cases. In those cases we had
residents from Chaska and Norwood-Young America that were coming into Chanhassen selling
cocaine and we also did 2 search warrants here. Benefits of membership. We couldn't do it
without you. We need the support. You make it possible. The concept of a task force is a very
good one I believe and it's the idea that information can go to one group of people and they're
going to follow the information and they're going to give it some closure. They're going to,
they've got access to central depository for drug related information. We get calls from all over.
From St. Cloud to Mankato and we work with those drug task forces and it's a great resource.
People don't slip through the cracks. Our challenges. There are a few cities in Scott County that
we'd like to get on board. We recently got Prior Lake. There's some opportunities there that
we'd like to secure. We are currently not co-located. We would entertain or we're searching for
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
a location where we can all be under one roof to even enhance our information sharing. But
perhaps our biggest challenge is funding. We're going to apply for federal funding for a 2 year
grant cycle of 2008-2009 and we'll do that in the end of the summer of 2007. That's about all I
have for you unless there's any questions.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, I'm sure there are. Questions for the Sergeant. Anyone?
Councilman Peterson: The only question I really had was, what are the options other than
federal for funding issues? What's the plan if you don't get federal funding? Go find a nice, big
house.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Well that one's a little bit out of our control, the federal funding. At a local
level you know our options would be to try to increase our membership contributions. You
know as anybody in business would probably attest to it, we can't rely on our forfeitures. We did
have 2 good years forfeiture wise, in '05 and '06. It's not realistic that we're going to maintain
that level.
Councilman Peterson: So what about Prior Lake? When Prior Lake comes in, are they throwing
in dollars to contributing or how do you determine what dollar they're going to contribute?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: The fee schedule for law enforcement agencies with jurisdictional
populations in excess of 7,000 residents is $8,400. So that's what they're contributing.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I have a question.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Yeah, you might…one of your presentations. How many members
on your task force?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Six total. Five investigators plus myself.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. And your 2006 and '07, it looks like there's a decrease, is that
correct in your methamphetamine seizures.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: We increased our seizures in 2006 over 2005. That's statewide. Based
statewide. With seizures.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: But is there a reason for that?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Well one.
Sheriff Bud Olson: We're doing a good job.
Councilman Peterson: Next question.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Well, one theory is all the meth awareness, education that's out there is
having an effect and the stimulant users are going to cocaine instead. Which would somewhat
explain the spike in seizures of cocaine.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Because when you have your seizures, is it, does it matter what
season it is in terms of spring, summer, fall?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: We haven't seen any correlation to the seasons.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Okay. I'm just asking that question because I worked with the
Salvation Army in Chaska and you have a, it's a matrix program to help methamphetamine
addicts and…that in the wintertime…
Councilwoman Ernst: Just a clarification, to Craig's point earlier. So do the grants, and maybe I
should know this and maybe you talked about that, but did the grants come from the State or did
they come from.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: They're federal funds that are administrated by the State.
Councilwoman Ernst: Okay.
Sheriff Bud Olson: If I might just jump in Mayor and council. They're federal Byrne grant
dollars, and currently, actually for the last 2 federal fiscal budgets, they've been eliminated by the
current administration and we've been able in law enforcement keep them, and there's some
issues relative to how the Byrne grant dollars are to be used in law enforcement so they want to
reallocate them into a new program in homeland security department in Washington so there's
been a lot of discussion about this much law enforcement because there's so many of us that rely
on those federal dollars to come back locally and help fund this.
Councilwoman Ernst: So is that the pattern statewide?
Sheriff Bud Olson: All, see and this is one of the things that I've heard. If you saw our funding
was at $160,000 for our grant not too many years ago and what happened is the State of
Minnesota combined gangs and drugs together and so that created some new opportunities for
other task forces in other areas of the state to join in as a part of this funding program, which of
course diluted or moved the money out a little bit. And there's been a reduction, a general
reduction from the Byrne grant dollars from the federal government. They have reduced it by a
good 40% over the last 3 years for local assistance to law enforcement so that's been the other
thing that's been guiding these numbers. Quite frankly in Carver County I have 2 agents that we
have assigned to the drug task force and it's very hard, from the funding cycle I do not receive
enough revenue back through the drug task force to offset all the operating expense that we have
and so over time we've had different agencies that have provided funds, or provided staffing to
help us in this matter, but I've pretty much for 2 of them, I pretty much fund 1, or we fund 1 I
should say through the county for these programs.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Councilwoman Ernst: So is there another pool that you can draw from for federal grants or state
grants?
Sheriff Bud Olson: Mayor and council, there really isn't. It's going to come down to can we
increase our membership fee and can local take on more of the burden of funding it? In some
jurisdictions they fund it regardless if they have any assistance or not. They just tell the county
taxpayers this is a base level service and we're going to provide this level of service and if we get
grants or we get any forfeitures or anything else, that's, we'll share that. You'll share that
revenue, but pretty much they make a commitment fighting drugs first and then go after it. Our
history here has been pretty much we've been using the federal dollars, past few dollars to help
offset the operating expense for us at the local level, so we would have to restructure and rethink
how we fund the task force and that would be some lively discussion because the smaller
communities, it's hard for them. They want to participate but it's hard for them to do that with
local dollars. It's just really difficult so it's one of our challenges.
Councilwoman Ernst: Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Other questions?
Councilman Litsey: Well I was going to say I really appreciate you coming. I was the one that
suggested that you come tonight so if you had to give up your evening, I apologize but I just
think, and being on the executive committee or board, I see first hand the incredible job that you
do, both as a commander and I also appreciate Carver County's role and support of this task
force. Without Carver County it probably wouldn't be possible to continue so I really appreciate
Sheriff Olson what you've done to continue the task force and Chris, what you've done as
commander of all the agencies. You do an incredible job and I think the statistics there are
phenomenal so thank you very much for what you're doing.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I just have one more question.
Mayor Furlong: Good. I've got a couple too.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: I read in Chaska there was some drugs found in lockers in a middle
school? High school?
Sheriff Bud Olson: Middle school.
Councilwoman Tjornhom: Was that part of the drug task force that was part of that operation?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: No.
Sheriff Bud Olson: No, that came from actually a concerned parent who overhead some
conversation going on with their children and reported to the school district, and then Chaska has
a liaison officers in the schools and that's, they tipped them off and off they went with their
investigation.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Mayor Furlong: Is Chaska part of the task force or not?
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Not at the current time.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Alright. I guess just some questions. First of all I hope the statistics for
Chanhassen in 2007 is not a trend that we're going to follow. I'm hoping it was just the result of
a very long investigation that occurred after the first of the year. But trends that you see. You
didn't confirm that so feel free to confirm that if you want. What are the trends that you're
seeing? Obviously we're growing in the area and the areas that you described including Scott
County, and we've been growing very rapidly. We're going to keep doing that. Are there, even
if there's higher volume and more drugs, more arrests, is it increasing on a per capita basis?
Decreasing? Staying about the same? What are you, what are the trends that you're seeing in
terms of the volume? You gave us some information on the allocation between the types of
drugs, but what are you seeing overall? Trends.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Well I think the one that stands out the most is the increase in cocaine and as
was alluded to the younger aged kids that are becoming involved. The Chaska incident spurred a
memory of in 2005 we investigated a fifth grader in Shakopee that was selling Ecstasy so those
things are disturbing and that's all the more reason that in my opinion that we need to be here.
We can't turn our back on the drug enforcement and there's a high likelihood that if we weren't in
existence, the majority of those drugs that were seized would have been on our streets.
Sheriff Bud Olson: I can say this Mayor and council too, by the activities of our drug agents, the
word is out. The word is out in our area. Our service area. We have a heck of a reputation of
getting on things and getting the job done. One thing that I do see though, the trend Mayor and
council is prescription drugs. Kids are taking Ritalin. They're crushing it up and they're trying to
get the high on that. You saw maybe in the local paper just this week about the cold medicines
and the other types of activities that…those type of things are really frightening to us. It's really
hard to fight that. They can go into a drug store and they can get that right over the counter type
of activity. What we do, and we have seen an increase abuse of school aged kids with
prescription drugs and you didn't allude to that but that's something that we're seeing in the task
force is the recovery of these prescription drugs.
Mayor Furlong: What interaction are you having or cooperative work are you doing with the
schools? The school districts in the area of the task force.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: You want to respond to that?
Sheriff Bud Olson: In Carver County I'll just respond. We have the school based deputies in
some of our schools. We have them in the co-op down in Chaska and Waconia. We have a
contracted deputy that works the Chan school district, or District 112 here. Doing our education
with those young people, so we've taken it out to that level. Our alcohol, tobacco and other
drugs, I might as well plug the help partnership. I'm on a committee that we're doing all types of
public education in our school districts with our school based social workers and chemical health
workers and we're providing them with all kinds of information on what to do. We've posted
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
some public meetings with defenders and people that have been in this business a little bit, so
we're trying to attach it from several different prongs mayor and council.
Mayor Furlong: How effective, and from what you're doing Sergeant on a drug task force as
well as just other issues, are having those officers, those deputies in the schools from school
liaison?
Sheriff Bud Olson: If you look at the national statistics and the local statistics mayor and
council, you can, we can see the effectiveness of having those school based resource officers. I
can just point to the Waconia school bombing incident we had here a couple years ago. If it
wasn't for our deputy in that school, I don't know how long it would have taken us to get to that
story. Let me give you another quick example. He solved a major gun burglary case out of
another one of our communities before it was reported to the police. He actually reported it and
got the information through the kids at school, and it was a recovery of a lot of guns. A lot of
guns, so there, that type of liaison, that type of interaction with those young people is invaluable.
Just invaluable. It's quite a wonderful tool that we have.
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I just want to add, I want to thank the council for supporting this
program over the years. Unfortunately we are getting some bang for our buck in the
investigations that go on in Chanhassen here. You can see that by the statistics. The good and
the bad that goes with it. But if we didn't have that program you know, I can't even sit here and
tell you what the number would be if we didn't have the program working in Chanhassen so I
want to thank both of you for your support and being here and letting people know that we are
investigating and we're out there looking for them so thank you.
Sheriff Bud Olson: You're welcome. And also I'll put my plug in. There's also different levels
of funding that you can support too. How's that? …I get my plug in.
Todd Gerhardt: You got it in.
Sheriff Bud Olson: And we are concerned. Very concerned about that, funding. And so
anything we can do to partner and work on partnerships, and it can include community groups.
We've had great you know, great support from our other community groups as well so we
appreciate your support. Your partnership and we'll continue to fight this issue.
Mayor Furlong: Excellent. Thank you.
Councilman Litsey: Just one more comment. Sheriff Olson, obviously we need to talk about
funding sources and so forth but the reality of it is with the dwindling federal dollars and you
know forfeitures not a dependable source, what are we looking at? I mean what are you looking
for us as a council to help down the road? Pick up more of the local burden. Because it's
obviously, I think the writing's on the wall. It's going to start shifting. We're going to need to
prepare for that. Budget cycles are coming up now. Can you give us some.
Sheriff Bud Olson: I'm going to leave that to you.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Councilman Litsey: Okay.
Sheriff Bud Olson: Mayor and council to decide on what level of funding you want to do. We'll
talk about that as we move forward and get our work plan done in the fall, or summer I should
say and we'll talk about that mayor and councilmen. We'll talk and see where our numbers come
in at and we'll be back at you.
Councilman Litsey: Okay.
Todd Gerhardt: Bud and I typically meet here May-June timeframe to start laying out the budget
for the year and what types of service we want to provide and that will be a list of
recommendations back to you from that and we'll talk and see what the needs are.
Mayor Furlong: Well thank you. We appreciate all your efforts throughout the entire task force
area and especially here in Chanhassen.
Sgt. Chris Dellwo: Thank you very much for your support.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Very good. We're moving on now, monthly report from the fire
department. Chief Greg Geske is here this evening. Good evening Chief.
Chief Greg Geske: Good evening. Apologize again for not being here last month's meeting. We
were at a call. And I did bring Roger, the First Assistant Chief and I'll introduce him in a minute
but basically some of the numbers, I had some numbers. We were ahead for calls for the first
time in a few years here. Albeit by just about 5 calls so I can't claim fire prevention is keeping
the call numbers down any longer I guess. Hopefully we'll see a decrease next month again. I
st
did want to bring to light April 1 we will be having a pancake breakfast at the fire station. We
do that with the Lion's Club and joint participation between the fire department and Lion's Club
st
so I want to invite everybody to the pancake breakfast on April 1. And we didn't exactly make
it through the cold season without a structure fire, as noted in the council update. We did have a
townhouse fire. Although it was relatively warm for the cold season, that morning it was 7
below 0 so we hope that we don't, the pager doesn't go off when it gets real cold and we almost
made it through that cycle but we did have a structure fire there. Going through that cold time
so. I don't have anything else. I do want to bring Roger Small back up. He's our First Assistant
Chief. We had an election in December and Roger was elected for a 2 year term as our First
Assistant Chief so I'll let Roger come up and introduce himself and talk about himself a little bit
here.
Roger Small: Well as Greg stated, he wanted me to tell you a little bit about myself so I will try
to condense 50 years into 3 minutes here. I've been a Chanhassen resident for 15 years, going on
16 years now. Live over on the wrong side of the tracks over in the Lake Susan neighborhood.
As far as occupation and training, education goes, went to the University of Minnesota and USC
San Diego as a biology major there. After spending all of the time and money and effort to
training in biology, I turned around and spent the next 30 plus years working in IT, Information
Technology. Currently with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota in Eagan. As far as the fire
department goes, been with the fire for 12 years. During that time I've been, served as
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Quartermaster for 11 of those years. Been a Rescue Officer. Served as an Engine Company
Lieutenant. Served as an Engine Company Captain. Spent 4 or 5 years, I don't remember which,
as Captain of Rescue Company 5. And in December, as Greg stated, there was an election. I
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assumed the duties of Assistant Chief on January 1, and that is a very short version of how I
came to be standing here tonight.
Mayor Furlong: Very good. Thank you very much. Any questions for the Chief or comments?
Councilman Peterson: I read that Leanne Chin's ended up being closed down for 6 days. That
tells me it was a relatively serious fire but yet we weren't even paged out on it.
Chief Greg Geske: Right. The manager had showed up in the morning and there was smoke
there. He chose not to call the fire department because he didn't know, he found out what it was
initially. There was a mop in the mop bucket that was up over the water heater and as I
understand it, and our fire marshal could explain a little bit better, but the wood handle burnt
down to the plastic bucket, and it could have been a big fire. He happened to show up at the
right time. Was able to extinguish it. It wasn't until later until the Area Manager came down
there and notified us but it was closed because of smoke that they had and they had to take care
of that so that was the reason it was closed.
Councilman Peterson: That was lucky.
Mayor Furlong: I know I've asked before but if people are at home watching and interested in
learning more about how they can be a part of the fire department, what's the best way for them
to do that?
Chief Greg Geske: Keep in touch, or I guess keep watching. We will be, sooner or later we'll be
taking on more fire fighters. At this time we don't have a group that we're taking on but you can
always fill out an application and you can get a hold of Mark Littfin at City Hall and do an
application with him. We have the application on file and then the next time when we have an
entry of company, a group of individuals that we take on, we'll be contacting you so.
Mayor Furlong: Sounds good. Very good, any other questions for the Chief?
Todd Gerhardt: People can also go to the web site. Click on fire department and we'll have
applications on there, and I want to thank Roger. Roger's one of the people responsible for
always at the fire station so our on call individual is Roger and our response time is so low is
because Roger's usually hanging out at the fire station. Especially early in the morning so.
Chief Greg Geske: He's a lot like a lot of us, we don't have much of another life. And that's no
cut at Roger. Thank you.
Mayor Furlong: Very good, thank you.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
PUBLIC HEARING: VACATION OF DRAINAGE AND UTILITY EASEMENT, LOTS
7 & 8, BLOCK 3, LAKE LUCY RIDGE, DENALI CUSTOM HOMES, VACATION FILE
07-01:
Public Present:
Name Address
David Bieker 1770 Lucy Ridge Court
Paul Oehme: Thank you Mayor, City Council members. Lake Lucy Ridge is located just south
of Lake Lucy Road and east of Galpin Boulevard. The applicant has requested the vacation of
the existing easement and shifting of the property line 14 feet to the west. The parcel as shown
here on Lot 8 is represented by Parcel B and Lot 7 is Lot, or Lot 7. The builder to the property is
requesting the lot line change so that the proposed impervious surface coverage for Parcel B, Lot
8 would not exceed 25% based upon the proposed structure, residential unit that he would like to
build on that lot. 5 foot drainage utility easement would be dedicated on both sides of the
property line as shown here in the blue. The yellow color is the existing property and the
existing easements that would be vacated. The existing, an existing utility box is currently
located within the easement. That portion of the easement is proposed to be not vacated to serve
any future needs of that. Staff recommends approval of the easement vacation contingent upon
simultaneously recording of a lot line adjustment. Easement vacation, easement dedication. At
this time I would request that a public hearing be opened and I stand for questions. The
applicant is here tonight if you have any questions at all.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff at this point? Any questions for the
applicant? Anything you want to say at this time? At this time I'll open up the public hearing
and invite all interested parties to come forward and address the council on this matter. Please
come forward and state your name and address. Okay, seeing nobody we'll close the public
hearing and bring it back to council. Any discussion on this matter? If not is there a motion to
approve?
Kate Aanenson: Mayor, can I just comment on one thing? I just want to point something out for
the record. If you turn to the page that shows the area on the lots. I just want to point this out.
This is one of the issues that we tried to apprise the applicant of. The lot line shifting to build a
fairly large home on the lot and we did ask him to disclose everything that would go on there so
you could see there's a potential swimming pool and the like. If you look at the bottom of that
page it shows, this is towards the end of the report. I just want to point out for the record that,
because we did point it out to the applicant. While they're creating a large lot for that home, it's
making the other lot smaller so this lot is 22,000, over 22,000 and they're at just a freckle under
25% hard cover, and so what we're saying, if you look in that area, a lot of those are larger
homes so that home coming in is going to have to be significantly, or quite a bit smaller than
what's around that area. So they've chosen to build a bigger home, which is fine but we just want
to, we did point out to the applicant that the other lot probably won't be able to accommodate as
large a home with the square footage.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Mayor Furlong: And Ms. Aanenson you raise a point in the staff report, it says Parcel A will end
up being 6, just over 16,000 square feet which still exceeds our minimums.
Kate Aanenson: That's correct.
Mayor Furlong: And we're not creating a non-conforming lot by this movement but to your
point, the smaller, a smaller lot will not be able to accommodate the same size home as a large
lot.
Kate Aanenson: As some of the surrounding homes that have been built in the neighborhood.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
David Bieker: Can I make a quick comment?
Mayor Furlong: Certainly.
David Bieker: Can you see this if I put it… My name's David Bieker. I'm President of Denali
Custom Homes. I actually also live in the neighborhood so I'm kind of here for I guess both.
That, I knew that that comment might come up. I wanted to address it quickly. The house on
Lot 6 is 5,300 square feet. The proposed house on Lot 8, which although it looks very large, it's
actually spread out with the side entry garage and it's only 5,229 square feet, so it's actually
smaller than the one on Lot 6. The dwelling that's going to be, that is being built to the right of
Lot 8 is actually 6,800 square feet, so there are some large homes in the neighborhood. I mapped
out a dwelling on Lot 7 that would be able to be built there. Well within the setbacks of both
front and side setbacks. That could easily achieve 6,000 square feet, so it'd actually be bigger
than the one on Lot 6. And meet hard cover requirements. Actually it would come in at about, I
have available hard cover of about 4,062. With the new lot line change and this 6,000 square
foot dwelling could come in at about just 4,020 square feet and be less than 25%.
Mayor Furlong: That would include accommodations for future.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, I would agree you can certainly get a home on there. My point was that
if you look at the style that's up there right now, that's not the typical one that's up there right
now. I just wanted to point that out for the record. That's all. I'm confident with 16 you can
meet all the setbacks. But if you look at the style that's up there.
David Bieker: Before I agreed to do this with the homeowner, not only is there a side entry
garage but also accommodate a future pool which we are not actually applying for a permit for at
this time. I did a full analysis of the lot to make sure that as a business person that I would still
be able to accommodate a good size home on the property.
Kate Aanenson: Yeah, and we asked that he do that too, just for the record. In working with
staff so.
Mayor Furlong: Okay.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Councilman Litsey: Is that just for illustration purposes, that home that you placed on there or is
that something that you're looking at actually putting in there?
David Bieker: It's for illustration but if you're interested.
Mayor Furlong: Any further discussion or questions? Seeing none is there a motion to approve.
Councilman Peterson: So moved.
Councilwoman Ernst: Second.
Mayor Furlong: It's been made and seconded.
Paul Oehme: Did we close the public hearing, I'm sorry.
Mayor Furlong: I did…and I would reiterate that but I'm pretty sure that's on the minutes. The
public hearing has been closed. A motion's been made and seconded to approve staff's
recommendation. Any discussion on the motion?
Resolution #2007-17: Councilman Peterson moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded that
the City Council approves the vacation of drainage and utility easements on Lots 7 and 8,
Block 3, Lake Lucy Ridge contingent upon simultaneous recording of the lot line
adjustment, easement vacation and easement dedication. All voted in favor and the motion
carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
1(E). APPROVAL OF 2007 STRATEGIC PLAN PRIORITIES.
Councilman Litsey: The reason I asked this be removed is I just thought we spent a lot of time in
work sessions on this but not too much at the regular council meetings discussing this. First and
foremost I thought maybe, not to put Todd on the spot but just to, maybe we could just go over
what we've done so that people in the audience and people at home, the process that we
followed.
Todd Gerhardt: Alright. What I'd like to do is have Laurie just highlight 2 or 3 of each of the
goals in each of our categories. We spent the last month establishing about 40 goals for the year
and if Laurie could just highlight 2 or 3 of those. We also established our vision statement which
Chanhassen is a community for life, providing for today and planning for tomorrow and I think
our strategies and goals for the year really take that into account. You know that we're not just
going to look for things for today but we're also looking into the future and planning for that
from our roads to our infrastructure to major buildings, fire stations, things like that and that's
what I'm most proud of is that we're always constantly looking down the line, but also knowing
that we have to address things like that house this evening to accommodate for you know people
that have invested in the community so, with that if Laurie, if you could just highlight a couple of
the goals through the year for each of our key elements of our 2007 strategy.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Laurie Hokkanen: Certainly. As Councilman Litsey said, we spent quite a bit of time on this.
We started in January with the Saturday visioning session and just so everyone at home knows,
this is not the first year that we've taken on this process. I believe that the council is in their fifth
year of following this process of annually setting out what projects and what goals you want to
accomplish over the coming year. Got a couple of different categories and I just selected a
couple that we can talk about. What we're going to be undertaking in the next year. First of all
one of the bigger projects and the ones that will make the newspaper more often is the
Chanhassen Dinner Theater. We know that there are some changes to come. We're not sure yet
what those changes will be but we continue to work with them. It may involve a new theater. It
may involve the redevelopment of that site. We're hopeful that it will involve a Southwest
Transit station and parking ramp. So we'll be working on that over the next year. We'll see how
that takes shape. As for strengthening the city's financial position, one of the council's favorite
things to do. One of the things we're going to talk about in 2007 is our utility rate structure and I
think the key to that is that we're looking for long term stability and there are some different
mechanisms out there that we currently do not use that we're going to take a look at and see how
they could help us or how they would change how we're currently doing things. A couple of the
concepts there would be considering acreage charges, water consumption rate and tiered water
rates. We're just going to take a look at those and see what they would do. Not necessarily that
we will implement them, but we will look at them to see what the impacts could be. We're going
to look at new programs out at the Rec Center. We want to make sure that the Rec Center keeps
up with the changing market and continues to meet the needs of the community. That might be
new revenue producing programs. It might be new sponsorship. Or just new programs in
general. Just being sure we keep up with what people want from that community facility. Under
planning the city's infrastructure, we're hopeful that there will be some opportunities to acquire
excess right-of-way from the 212/312 project over the next year or possibly into the future.
Acquiring that right-of-way will open, could open up some opportunities for new trails. We
looked at possibly a trail around Rice Marsh Lake. And just in general some open space
preservation that would otherwise not be possible. We've got two projects that we've been
including in the capital improvement plan for a few years now that are coming to the top of the
list this year, and that includes a new satellite fire station to serve the southern areas of town, as
well as a public works facility expansion. So we're going to start talking about what that would
look like and what our needs are. Presently many of our public works vehicles are stored
outside. Talking about what that means to the vehicles and how we might go about changing
that. Also under infrastructure, we'll be working with Carver County on locating a government
services center in the city somewhere. This is something we've heard from our residents. They
would really like to be able to access some of their Carver County services without leaving
Chanhassen. I think what most people think of immediately when they think of a government
services center is the license portion, and that will be a big part of it, but there may be other
aspects and county services involved in that as well. Under the goal of competitiveness, taking
up a lot of your time and hopefully drawing a lot of community interest this year will be that we
are updating our comprehensive plan. That's already underway. We've already started talking
about the land use portion of that. That will be a big part of it. But we're talking about all
aspects of the city's development over the next 20 years as well, and this is something that we do
every 10 years. So it will be a big project and I think Kate's looking forward to it and I know
we've got a lot of opportunities for the community to get involved that are out there, so hopefully
people are not just hearing about that for the first time. Everything that we've identified is that
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
we are going to continue to grow and we need to or want to establish benchmarks and guidelines
for staffing across the city. As we do grow, how will we know when we've hit a threshold where
we need to possibly add staff or other resources, and what will those thresholds be. I think those
are a few that I picked out to highlight. If you have questions on any of them, or if there's one
you wanted to highlight, I'll turn it back over to you Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any questions for staff?
Todd Gerhardt: Mayor I'd just like to make another statement. This will show up on our web
site so if any resident that's viewing this evening would like to see the entire list, they can go to
our web site and download the entire list of strategies for the year.
Mayor Furlong: Okay, good. Any questions for staff? Comments.
Councilman Litsey: The one other thing I just wanted to mention is that I understand that there's
only so much staff time to look at different issues so I respect the fact that we went through a
process and that some of the things that were, that I would have liked to have seen on there
weren't necessarily, weren't included. However a lot of the things we did come up with I do
support most everything on there I do support. So I just wanted to mention if I could the four
things that I felt should be on it, just so the public's aware of that and that we may look at those
down, or may look at that in the future, if that would be acceptable Mayor.
Mayor Furlong: I'm sorry, I mean you've got comments?
Councilman Litsey: Well I just wanted to make a comment that like I said, we went through a
process and everybody had a chance to throw things on the table and talk about strategies for the
city and what we felt was near and dear to our heart and also what we had commonality on and I
think the things we came up on, came up with, we did have commonality on. But there were
four things that I, a couple things that I brought during the campaign and there was also a couple
other things that I'd like to see the city take a look at, but we've made the decision I guess
collectively that we don't have the staff time to look at perhaps this year but I just wanted to
make note of them. One of them was adopt a code of ethics and values for elected and appointed
officials which would be designed to increase the public trust and confidence in government by
promoting and maintaining the high standards for personnel, professional conduct among the
people who represent the City of Chanhassen. The second one was the city recognize an ethical
campaign pledge for candidates seeking an elected office would be asked to sign a voluntary
pledge to campaign ethically. The names of the candidates who make this pledge would be
posted on the city's web site. The third issue was establish a public safety commission or task
force. The city already has an advisory commission to help guide the city council and staff when
it comes to land use and zoning, parks and recreation, environmental issues and the needs for the
seniors. There's no such advisory commission for public safety which is one of the most vital of
all services provided by local government. And then to consider the pros and cons of a ward
system for electing City Council members, and to consider the pros and cons of a ward system
for electing City Council members. A ward system to provide some more uniform
representation throughout the city. Allows residents a closer connection to their elected official
and acts as a deterrent to coalitions being formed based on special interests and partisan politics
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
so I'm all in favor of supporting the strategies that we've come up with. I'm prepared to do that
tonight. I just wanted those on the record. Those are some things that I would like to see also
included in, if not this year, in subsequent years. I appreciate the opportunity to outline this.
Mayor Furlong: Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion? Questions? If not, is there a motion
to adopt the strategies?
Councilwoman Ernst: So moved.
Mayor Furlong: Thank you. Is there a second?
Councilman Peterson: Second.
Mayor Furlong: Made and seconded. Any discussion?
Councilwoman Ernst moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to approve the 2007 Strategic
Plan Priorities as presented. All voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a
vote of 5 to 0.
CONSIDERATION OF APPOINTMENT TO SOUTHWEST METRO TRANSIT
COMMISSION.
Mayor Furlong: Earlier this evening the council had an opportunity to interview two qualified
candidates that had expressed interest in serving on the Southwest Metro Transit Commission as
one of the city's two representatives. Southwest Metro Transit Commission is the commission
that provides the public transportation, bus and services. It's a joint commission between the
City of Chanhassen, Chaska and Eden Prairie. Councilman Craig Peterson currently serves as
one of our representatives. Councilwoman Vicki Ernst is a former member there. We do have a
vacancy as I said. We had two candidates that expressed interest. Both were strong candidates.
It's never easy to pick one when you have two good candidates but after interviewing the
candidates and with the discussion of the council, we want to go ahead and appoint Neil
Anderson, a Chanhassen resident as one of the Chanhassen representatives to the Southwest
Metro Transit Commission. So at this time I will make that motion to appoint Mr. Neil
Anderson and ask for a second.
Councilman Peterson: Second.
Mayor Furlong: It's been seconded. Any discussion on that?
Mayor Furlong moved, Councilman Peterson seconded to appoint Neil Anderson as one
Chanhassen's two representatives to Southwest Metro Transit Commission. All voted in
favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0.
COUNCIL PRESENTATIONS:
None.
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City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
ADMINISTRATIVE PRESENTATIONS:
Todd Gerhardt: We had a successful weekend of having the water treatment plant up and fully
operational. We pumped about 1.7 million gallons of treated water and that met the demand that
we had in our community for that area. So we're still working out a few little bugs along the way
but I'd say very successful operation going on there and staff and SEH have done a great job of
really minimizing the impact back to the community where you may have larger deposits of iron
and manganese in the system so you know I can tell you I never received a single complaint on
it. I think we have gotten a few calls out at the public works but they just have done a fantastic
job of getting that plant operational and with very few impacts onto the community so, they've
done a great job. Paul and his staff just done a great job. Another thing that I get a lot of
questions on is what's the activity going on behind Cub. That is the regional storm water pond
for the downtown area. We've expanded the capacity of that pond and we're also doing
maintenance on it. Periodically within 10 years you clean those ponds out and in this case we're
cleaning it out and expanding the capacity of that and that work should be completed in the next
couple of weeks so you know, I think they're doing a great job over there. Looks good and
hopefully we'll get some rain and some additional snow and we can fill that up later on this
spring and collect some additional sand and debris through our storm water system.
Councilman Litsey: Thanks for clarifying that because I've had a lot of phone calls…
Todd Gerhardt: Yeah, I think so and the rest of the council knows that they didn't approve any
site plan for that area so, that's the activity going on there. We have, you see additional truck
traffic on Highway 5 and some of our local streets. We are working with Bluff Creek Watershed
District in putting in storm water ponds. It's about a million dollars worth of storm water ponds
that will pre-treat water before it goes into Rice Marsh and then ultimately into Lake Riley and
improving the water quality of both of those water bodies. And we also have a project in my
back yard, the Curry Farms neighborhood is expanding storm water ponds there so I think we've
provided quite a few notices to the neighborhood, letting them know what those big backhoes are
doing in the park and also expanding the storm water capacity of that area where that water
ultimately goes into Christmas Lake so again, trying to improve the water quality of those lake
bodies in the community. Other than that, I think the crews did a great job of cleaning the streets
this weekend. Kept up with the snow and ready for the next batch that's supposed to come
around Wednesday, and in talking with Ross, there were no major incidents that really went on
in Chanhassen during the storm so our crew did a great job there.
Councilman Litsey: Did a great job on the roads.
Mayor Furlong: Any questions for Mr. Gerhardt? Okay.
CORRESPONDENCE DISCUSSION.
None.
Mayor Furlong: If there's nothing else to come before the council this evening, we will be
continuing our work session items immediately following, in the Fountain Conference Room. If
there's nothing else to come before the council, is there a motion to adjourn?
19
City Council Meeting - February 26, 2007
Councilman Litsey moved, Councilwoman Ernst seconded to adjourn the meeting. All
voted in favor and the motion carried unanimously with a vote of 5 to 0. The City Council
meeting was adjourned at 8:10 p.m..
Submitted by Todd Gerhardt
City Manager
Prepared by Nann Opheim
20